


The Other Loki

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new Trickster in town. Tony and the other Avengers aren't sure what to make of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Loki

**Author's Note:**

> Don't know how my characterisation is at the moment, but a while ago I got this niggling little idea for a fic where after dying, Gabriel found himself in the Avengers universe. So here you go. I might edit this at some point when I don't have headaches.

**The Other Loki**

Eventually, the Avengers caught up with the latest minor supervillain.

For the last several months, the country had been prey to a strong of bizarre occurrences. It was always the same: something improbable and unpleasant (sometimes fatally so) happened to the chosen victim, something which had clearly been arranged by supernatural means. Further investigation into the various events had uncovered a pattern: one, the apparently random attacks were usually some sort of ironic retribution for something horrible that the victim themselves had done, and two, the same guy was always present at the scene either shortly beforehand or afterwards. Whoever he was, he had no identification, any paper trail he left behind was always falsified, and he was almost certainly the one responsible for the attacks.

SHIELD had been tracking the guy – magic user? Demigod? No one knew for sure what he was – for a while. Until today, the Avengers had never gotten close. Today, though they’d gotten lucky: the Trickster had apparently overlooked a security camera that was transmitting in real time, and the Avengers had been sent in to collect him.

The suspect eyed the arrow Clint was aiming in his direction, switched to look at Captain America and Iron Man where they stood looking ominous, and let his eyes settle on Natasha, whose stony look was more terrifying than any of the above. Bruce was away at a conference, and Thor was on one of his periodic trips to Asgard, leaving only the four Avengers to deal with the potential threat.

“Is this the part where I say, I would have got away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids?” the guy asked. “Because I don’t want any trouble. What do you guys want?”

“You want to tell us who you are?” asked Tony.

“Me?” the guy asked. He smirked, tilting his head to eye Tony with a devilish gleam in his eyes. “They call me Loki.”

“Bullshit,” said Clint immediately. The guy smirked further.

“And yet here I am.”

“Why have you been hurting and killing people?” Steve asked, giving Clint a look that asked him to be quiet for now.

Pseudo-Loki sneered.

“You have to ask? I mean, come on, look at my MO. I’m a _Trickster_.” The way he said it, Tony could hear the capital T. “I humble the prideful and deliver _just desserts_.” He said the last part with relish. “Why do you _think_ I’ve being doing it? Or did you think that the fact that everyone I went after was a grade-A douche was only a coincidence?” He raised a mocking eyebrow.

“Well, Loki or whoever you are, whatever your reasons, you’re coming with us,” said Steve. “Please raise your hands above your head.”

The guy’s eyebrows rose, but surprisingly, he did as asked. As Steve fitted the special magic suppressant cuffs (Tony’s design, obviously) on him, he made no move to get away or fight back.

Frankly, it made Tony suspicious.

“You know, gotta say,” Pseudo-Loki remarked, as a SHIELD van pulled up, “this is the first time I’ve been _arrested_ for what I do.”

“What, you thought no one would ever catch up with you?” Clint snarked as Pseudo-Loki was led to the SHIELD van.

“Oh, people catch up with me. It’s just that normally they try to kill me, not arrest me,” Pseudo-Loki explained matter-of-factly. “I like your way. Nice and civilised.”

“Sir, please get in the van,” Steve requested, sounding ready to sigh.

“Polite, too,” Pseudo-Loki commented, and climbed into the van without any protest. SHIELD field agents slammed the doors behind him.

The Avengers looked at each other.

“I don’t like this,” said Natasha. “He went too easily.”

“You think he _wants_ to be taken in?” Tony asked.

“Maybe.” Natasha was frowning. “He certainly didn’t make much of an effort not to be.”

“Maybe he wants to turn over a new leaf,” Steve suggested hopefully, but without conviction.

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” said Clint grimly.

* * *

Questioning Pseudo-Loki went nowhere. Oh, he was perfectly willing to explain the reasoning behind his attacks: the guy molested by the tentacle monster was a serial rapist, the woman hit by the monster truck was responsible for a hit-and-run, the guy who’d broken into song about gay love while he was at work was actually deeply homophobic, and so on. But when it came to finding out who Pseudo-Loki was, and where he’d come from, questioning was useless.

When Steve asked him _why_ he’d taken to pranking the wicked, Pseudo-Loki just looked at him as though he were slow and drawled, “Hellooo, _Trickster._ It’s what I _do._ ”

While Pseudo-Loki was being interrogated, Thor returned from his latest trip to Asgard, and was indignant to hear that someone was apparently impersonating his brother.

“I would have words with this imposter,” Thor said ominously.

“Alright, but words only, Thor,” Steve warned.

Everyone waited curiously to see how Pseudo-Loki would react when Thor walked into the interrogation room to join Tony, who had been having a frustrating non-conversation with the Trickster.

But Pseudo-Loki didn’t seem to recognise Thor at all.

“And who’s Fabio here supposed to be?” asked pseudo-Loki, sounding bored.

“I am Thor, of Asgard,” Thor said, looking imposing.

Pseudo-Loki looked him over.

“Huh. You’re a lot blonder than in my reality.”

“Wait – your reality?” Tony echoed.

“Yup.” Pseudo-Loki pulled a lollipop out of his pocket. “Didn’t I mention?” He smiled brightly.

Somehow, despite the fact that the other Loki had mind-controlled, injured, and killed countless people as a result of his invasion, Tony totally wanted to punch Pseudo-Loki more.

“Once more with feeling: I hate magic,” said Tony.

Pseudo-Loki smirked at him smugly.

Tony didn’t punch him, but it was a close call.

“You are of another World Tree?” Thor asked, his brow furrowing. “I have heard my brother speak of such matters.”

“Yup,” Pseudo-Loki – or not so pseudo, if he was telling the truth; more like Alternate Loki, Tony thought – said around the lollipop. “I’m from a parallel universe. This one’s nicer. No one’s trying to destroy all creation over here.”

“Why are _you_ here?” Tony asked. Alternate Loki shrugged.

“Not a clue. Got stabbed to death, woke up in this reality with a nice scar in the middle of my torso. So I figured I’d been given a second chance, and since I couldn’t get home, got back to doing what I do best. Namely, delivering just desserts, like I said.”

“So, you are indeed Loki,” Thor mused, “but not the Loki that we are familiar with.”

“Pretty much,” Alternate Loki agreed. 

“Well,” Tony began, “I hate to break it to you, Loki, but right now, unless you cooperate with us? It looks like you’re going to be locked away for a very long time.”

“Oh, please,” Alternate Loki sneered casually, “you really think you can keep me here if I don’t want to be here?”

“Uh, considering you’re sitting there in magic-suppressing handcuffs, yeah, I do,” responded Tony pointedly.

Alternate Loki gave Tony a long look. Then he smirked.

With a snap of his fingers, the magic suppressant cuffs were suddenly gone.

Tony made a valiant effort not to panic as Alternate Loki leant back in his chair, looking smug.

“Nice trick,” said Tony, as calmly as he could. “So why are you still here?”

Alternate Loki gave him a thoughtful look, and shrugged.

“You’re interesting. The Avengers, that is. I mean, just think about it.” Alternate Loki waved a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “There’s a genius billionaire in a robotic combat suit, a legendary super-powered war hero stuck out of time, another genius – this one with a rage-related transformation problem – a guy who could give the god of archery a run for his money, _the_ most deceptively deadly assassin I’ve ever seen, and Thor, God of Thunder. Can you blame me for being intrigued?”

“You did not seem to recognise me, and yet you speak of me and my shield brothers easily enough,” Thor observed.

Alternate Loki shrugged.

“Knew _of_ you, big guy. Didn’t know what you looked like. Anyway.” He glanced at the one-way mirror behind Tony and Thor. “Hate to cut our little meeting short, but your friend the angry pirate just showed up, and I don’t think he has some very nice plans for me. So I’ll see you around.”

“Wait –” Tony began, starting forward; but with another snap of the fingers, Alternate Loki disappeared, exactly the way he’d made the cuffs vanish earlier.

“What the hell was that?” Fury demanded, storming into the room in a swirl of leather. “I thought you said those cuffs would stop any magic-user from doing magic, Stark!”

“They should have,” Tony muttered, already thinking it over. “I don’t understand it.”

“Perhaps the fact that he is a denizen of another World Tree renders his magic unlike ours,” Thor suggested, with surprising insight.

“Could be,” Tony mused.

“Meanwhile, we’ve got Loki’s homicidal double on the loose,” Fury growled, not at all pleased.

“Well, at least he only believes in going after people who deserve it,” Tony said philosophically. Fury gave him a disgusted look.

“Whatever the problem is with those cuffs, I want it fixed,” he ordered, and strode out again.

* * *

Over the months that followed, the Trickster continued his reign of deadly pranks unchecked. Although the Avengers tried to keep up with him, they never knew where or when he was going to strike, and he was always long gone before they got to the scene of the latest example of his twisted form of justice. To be honest, Tony couldn’t bring himself to care all that much. Alternate Loki never went after innocents – which was more than they could say for most of his villainous counterparts – and in the scheme of things, when Earth was constantly being attacked by invaders and people who wanted to end the world, Alternate Loki’s antics weren’t really much of a threat.

Then SHIELD and the Avengers found out about Thanos, and they had much bigger things to worry about than a god of mischief from another reality. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do against the self-proclaimed Destroyer of Worlds, even when they dragged Thor’s brother in to help.

“We’re screwed,” Clint said, as Thanos roared, “ _KNEEL BEFORE ME!”_

“I second what Clint said,” said Tony, as Hulk bellowed back angrily back at Thanos in response. The others were all busy staring, or trying to come up with a plan. Thor readied Mjolnir, while Loki looked grim and fatalistic.

“Hey, ugly!” an unexpected voice called. Everyone turned to stare at the sight of Alternate Loki standing nearby, wielding a sword. His eyes were trained on Thanos. “Boy, you were sure standing behind the door when The Big Guy Upstairs was handing out looks, weren’t you?”

Tony sucked in a startled breath along with the others, impressed at Alternate Loki’s balls.

“He is insane,” Thor’s brother muttered, looking almost awed.

“You dare speak to me this way?” Thanos demanded angrily. Alternate Loki just met his angry stare with a steady one.

“I dare of a lot of things, bucko,” he said simply. “And believe me, standing here facing you isn’t even the biggest thing I’ve done. You think you’re scary? You’ve got nothing on my older brother. I mean, you’re basically just a guy with some impressive weapons and an inappropriate hard-on for Death.”

Thanos let out an enraged roar, and Alternate Loki was suddenly in front of him. He lunged forward, sword in hand. Thanos grabbed the Trickster’s wrist with a sneer, only for his expression to morph into surprise and shock as his grip did nothing to stop Alternate Loki’s sword from sliding forward and lodging in his heart.

Thanos staggered, his expression uncomprehending. That was when Alternate Loki put his free hand to Thanos forehead, and Thanos started to glow.

The glow started where Alternate Loki touched him, spreading down across his face and neck, across his shoulders, down his torso and legs. As it went, the glow started to intensify. Held in place by the sword in his midsection, Thanos’ face contorted in agony, mouth opening in a scream as the glow turned blinding. There was a sudden bright flash, too bright to look at, and when Tony blinked the spots away from his eyes there was no sign of Thanos…

…only tiny ashy particles, slowly floating to the ground.

Alternate Loki’s expression was as grim and unyielding as granite, his eyes glowing the same bright white that Thanos had before… whatever had just happened.

“Did you just _vaporise_ him?” Tony spluttered.

“I prefer to use the term ‘smite,’” Alternate Loki responded, his features falling back into their usual animation, the hard look gone. The glow in his eyes faded, leaving them a bright gold that in turn melted back into the usual hazel. Tony swallowed.

“I thought you were a Trickster god?” Natasha asked dryly, pointedly eyeing the spot where Thanos had stood. “That wasn’t a prank.”

“So sue me,” said Alternate Loki, rolling his eyes darkly in Natasha’s direction, “sometimes I interfere in interplanetary politics. I happen to be fond of this planet, and seeing it destroyed by Thanos would have been a huge downer. You’re welcome.”

“What are you really?” Steve asked seriously. “That – what you just did – no one can do that.”

“Cap’s got a point,” Tony put in. “Even Thor and Loki were outmatched by this guy, and they’re _gods._ ”

Alternate Loki was silent for a moment, then gave a gusty, long-suffering sigh as he turned to face them, resting his sword over his shoulder.

“Gabriel, Messenger of Heaven and Archangel of Justice, at your service,” he said sardonically.

“You’re the _Archangel_ of _Justice?_ ” Clint blurted. “ _You?_ ”

“I might have got a little disillusioned over the years,” Alternate Loki – or, apparently, the archangel Gabriel – conceded. Tony wasn’t sure he believed the guy, but that had definitely been an impressive display of power he’d shown in taking out Thanos, and it wasn’t like Tony had any other working explanation.

“A _little?_ ”

“What the hell disillusions an archangel?” Tony asked curiously.

“Well,” said Gabriel, “you know the whole Nietzchean thing of ‘God is dead?’”

“Yeah.”

“Well he’s not dead, but he sure isn’t around anymore.”

“What do you mean, he’s not around?” Steve asked, brow crinkling.

Gabriel gave him a look.

“Come on, what do you think I mean?” Gabriel retorted. “He’s _gone_. Vamoosed. Moved on without a forwarding address and left us all hanging.”

Natasha said something in Russian that made Gabriel give a sharp crack of laughter.

“You and me both, sweetheart.”

“You speak Russian?” asked Clint.

“That’s what you focus on? My friend, I speak _everything_. Perk of being an angel. I speak in tongues.” Gabriel waggled his eyebrows. 

“But….” Steve began, sounding uncertain. “He… can’t really be gone. That’s not…”

Gabriel sent him a challenging look.

“Kid, I’m the Messenger. You think I wouldn’t know if he were around somewhere? Trust me, nothing but silence on His end. It’s been like that for millennia. It sucks, but you’ve just gotta deal like the rest of us.” Gabriel’s voice was bitter.

“Wow,” Tony said, “Daddy issues, huh?”

The glare Gabriel sent him was bright and full of danger.

“Like you have room to talk.” Gabriel tilted his head to eye Tony with a look that wasn’t pleasant at all. “Mr ‘Daddy Never Paid Enough Attention To Me’.”

Tony felt himself tense, and bit back the angry retort that automatically sprang to his lips on the grounds that pissing off the guy who had just vaporised Thanos was a bad idea even by his standards.

“Hey,” Clint cut in, “I’m pretty sure all of us have a few parental issues here, so maybe we could all calm down and just, stop prodding at them?”

Gabriel snorted, but the angry brightness in his eyes was gone, his eyes flickering back to hazel. 

“Anyway,” the archangel said, “That’s Thanos taken care of, but there’s still his buddies to deal with, so I’ll see you bozos later. Toodles.” He vanished.

“Okay, so do we actually believe him?” Clint asked. “Because, if we do, angels are a lot less holy and kind of a lot more dickish than I thought. Just saying.”

“He would not dare claim such a title if it were not true,” said Loki. “To claim, falsely, that he is the Heavenly Messenger would be to court a swift and certain death.”

“He seemed to destroy Thanos easily enough,” Natasha pointed out, although Tony thought that even she looked a little unnerved at the whole idea that Alternate Loki was an all-powerful archangel in disguise. With Natasha, it was hard to tell.

“Do you think he was telling the truth about God being gone?” Steve asked in a small voice.

“I cannot see that one such as the Heavenly Messenger would have reason to lie about such matters,” Thor said sombrely. “I am sorry, my friend.”

“Oh.” Steve looked forlorn.

“We should probably update Fury about everything we just saw and heard,” said Natasha.

“Thanos is dead, Alternate Loki is actually a badass archangel, and God is AWOL,” summarised Tony. “I need a drink, who’s with me?”

“Can someone tell me what just happened?” Bruce asked plaintively, and pulled his Hulk Pants up a little as they started to slip.

* * *

“So, they say you have pole-dancing stewardesses on your planes. Now that’s classy.”

Tony jumped and let out a curse, and looked up to see a self-proclaimed archangel sitting on the holopgraphic projector table, doing a suggestive thing with his eyebrows.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in here?” Tony demanded, trying to calm his racing heart.

One of Gabriel’s eyebrows rose, and he gave Tony a patient look.

“ _Archangel_ ,” he emphasised.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re really annoying?” Tony asked. Gabriel smirked.

“Maybe a time or two,” he admitted easily.

“Why are you here?” Tony repeated. Gabriel shrugged.

“Well, for one, I wanted to tell you all of Thanos’ associates have been taken out. Two, I was bored.”

“Bored?” Tony repeated, his eyebrows rising towards his hairline in incredulity.

“Do you need to get your hearing checked? Yeah, bored,” Gabriel repeated. “So, I thought to myself, _hmm, who could possibly be interesting enough to be worth a moment of my time?_ And then I thought, hey, why not go bug the guy in the metal suit?”

“Wow. Am I supposed to be flattered?” Tony asked.

“You should be,” said Gabriel. “Most of my brothers think humanity are annoying little insects.”

“But not you?” Tony gave the archangel a thoughtful look.

“Spend enough time down here, the company starts to grow on you. And I’ve been living on Earth a while. What can I say? Humanity’s come up with some pretty impressive things. I mean, think of the Spearmint Rhino.”

In spite of himself Tony snorted with laughter.

“You think strip clubs are impressive?”

“Hells yeah,” Gabriel agreed. “Hot chicks, nice surroundings, good booze: what’s not to like?”

Put like that, Tony couldn’t disagree.

“I thought angels were supposed to be all holy and virtuous,” he commented.

“You might not have noticed, but I’m not your regular angel,” said Gabriel. “Normality is boring. I’d much rather be me.”

“You have a point,” Tony conceded. “All these other boring angels, you talk to them often?”

Something flickered in Gabriel’s expression, then he was snapping up a candy bar.

“Not really,” the archangel said casually. “See, they’re all back in the reality I came from, while I’m stuck here. And this reality is apparently an angel-free zone, except for me. Sooo, no chatting to the sibs.” He made a face. “Not that I’d want to, or anything. Like I said. _Boooooring._ ” 

“Uh-huh,” said Tony. “That doesn’t bother you?”

Gabriel abruptly lowered the candy bar and glared.

“ _Yes_ , okay, it bothers me,” he snapped, suddenly angry. “ _You_ try being ripped away from everything and everyone you care about and see how you like it. But I’m stuck here and I can’t get back so I’ve just got to suck it up and _deal_ with it!”

Gabriel’s angry shout rang through the confined space, making his yell seem even louder. Dummy hid behind a worktable with a small whine.

Gabriel went back to munching on his candy bar, his expression smoothing back into faux amiability.

“So,” he said, perfectly calmly, “what do you do for fun around here, anyway?”

Tony took a second to feel shaken at the abrupt change in moods – or apparent change in moods, anyway; he understood all about putting on a mask – and pulled himself together.

“Invent things, mostly. Well, that and improve things. Sometimes I used to throw wild parties, but Pepper disapproves.”

“That’s too bad,” Gabriel said sympathetically. “Wild parties are the best.”

Tony just shrugged. While he didn’t regret his past partying, it didn’t hold the same allure it used to. Dammit, he was getting old.

“Anyway, this has been a nice chat,” Gabriel remarked, sliding off the projector table and onto his feet, “but there’s a sadistic gym coach I need to dangle over a some lava. So I’ll see you round, Stark.” Gabriel grinned, and was gone.

“Uh, JARVIS?” Tony asked after a moment. “Do you think that means he’s going to turn up again?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of, too.”


End file.
